Open Access & Accessibility

In 2013, Refuge transitioned to an open-access policy, whereby all current and archived issues are available free of charge through our website. All archived issues can be accessed through the Archives page.

This policy is motivated by a desire to make high-quality research available to a broader audience outside of academic institutions in the global North, including readers who may not have access to academic libraries, including practitioners, people in situations of forced migration, and readers from the global south. By making our full archives widely available and accessible, Refuge underscores its history and unique leadership position in the field of refugee studies as one of the oldest journals in the field. This accessibility also facilitates the ability of scholars to widely cite articles of Refuge, thereby increasing our global academic impact.

Accessibility

As a peer-reviewed journal digitally hosted by York Digital Journals (YDJ) and published in conjunction with the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University, Refuge is committed to making the journal and our website accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities. 

We have partnered with Berman Communications, who conducted a comprehensive accessibility audit of our front-facing website, our manuscript submission wizard, which uses OJS (Open Journal Systems), and our publications. 

Remediation efforts are ongoing to make Refuge’s front-facing website, our manuscript submission system (OJS) as well as our publications conform to current accessibility standards, including Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) Level AA standards as per AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) regulations.

Refuge’s front-facing website is currently using OJS 3.3+ Default Theme, which was audited for accessibility in 2019 and again in 2021, with the goal to lower barriers for people with different disabilities. PKP (Public Knowledge Project), the developers of OJS, created an Accessibility Github Project to keep track of any issues and the progress towards their resolution. In 2023, work also started on making OJS’ submission wizard accessible.

With respect to our publications, from volume 37.2 (2021) onwards, Refuge articles are being published in both PDF and XML format to increase accessibility. In addition, Refuge’s articles that are available in PDF format only are retroactively being tagged to make them more accessible to our readers using assistive technologies, such as screen readers. Starting with volume 37.1 (2021), and working our way backwards through the Refuge archives, we are replacing our full issue PDFs with accessible versions.

We have also changed our submission guidelines to educate our authors on writing with accessibility already in mind, in particular when it comes to creating accessible tables, graphs and charts. 

 If you have any feedback, require information in an alternative format, or have concerns related to the accessibility of this website or our publications, please contact us at refuge@yorku.ca. 

Publication Fees

We do not charge article submission or processing fees (APCs).